Movies: We Bury the Dead, Red Rooms
6 January 2026 12:21![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snickficClearing out the last of my movies watched last year.
We Bury the Dead (2026). After an American experimental weapons accident kills every human and animal on Madascar, an American woman (Daisy Ridley) comes to help identify bodies and search for her husband who was on a work retreat there. Also sometimes the dead don't stay dead.
As someone who is pretty over zombie movies, I liked this one quite a bit. First of all, it's Australian, and boy can you feel it. This is not your Hollywood zombie blockbuster or even your Danny Boyle zombie blockbuster. For starters, we spend relatively little time running from or fighting zombies. In fact, these are the most ambiguously threatening zombies I can remember seeing in a long long time, and I liked how much that complicated the story. It's also beautifully shot with great atmosphere and a score that really adds to the mood of the whole thing. And I really appreciated how our understanding of the central couple's married relationship gets more complicated as the film goes on.
That said, ( spoilers )
This movie feels like it invites comparison to 28 Years Later, if only by accident, given the timing. I know 28 Years Later has a lot of fans, and I didn't hate it, but overall I liked this a lot better for the indie feel, the focus on a female character, and honestly because I liked the cinematography better.
Anyway, it's out in theaters now. If it sounds fun, I recommend it!
--
Red Rooms (2023). A French-Canadian film about two female true crime fans following the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering underage teen girls. This movie is beautifully made, and with really visible care and precision. The director knew what he wanted to make, and he went for it. The result is moody and fucked up without ever feeling exploitative (to me); this is very much about the groupies, not about the man on trial, and we never seen the horrifying footage at the center of the trial.
It's also shippy as hell. Our main gal Kelly-Anne is a wealthy model and computer hacker who professes herself to be "not bad with numbers," who's obsessed with the trial for reasons that are to some extent left to the viewer, while Clementine is a less well-heeled diehard apologist for the man at the center of the trial and is convinced he's innocent. Somehow out of these two, it's Clementine who feels like the more well-adjusted person; it's questionable whether Kelly-Anne has any friends at all, and yet maybe Clementine becomes one. As a friend of mine described it, "Clementine’s more open neediness draws out a reciprocal vulnerability from Kelly-Anne."
High rec from me. If any of this sounds appealing to you, definitely check it out.
We Bury the Dead (2026). After an American experimental weapons accident kills every human and animal on Madascar, an American woman (Daisy Ridley) comes to help identify bodies and search for her husband who was on a work retreat there. Also sometimes the dead don't stay dead.
As someone who is pretty over zombie movies, I liked this one quite a bit. First of all, it's Australian, and boy can you feel it. This is not your Hollywood zombie blockbuster or even your Danny Boyle zombie blockbuster. For starters, we spend relatively little time running from or fighting zombies. In fact, these are the most ambiguously threatening zombies I can remember seeing in a long long time, and I liked how much that complicated the story. It's also beautifully shot with great atmosphere and a score that really adds to the mood of the whole thing. And I really appreciated how our understanding of the central couple's married relationship gets more complicated as the film goes on.
That said, ( spoilers )
This movie feels like it invites comparison to 28 Years Later, if only by accident, given the timing. I know 28 Years Later has a lot of fans, and I didn't hate it, but overall I liked this a lot better for the indie feel, the focus on a female character, and honestly because I liked the cinematography better.
Anyway, it's out in theaters now. If it sounds fun, I recommend it!
--
Red Rooms (2023). A French-Canadian film about two female true crime fans following the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering underage teen girls. This movie is beautifully made, and with really visible care and precision. The director knew what he wanted to make, and he went for it. The result is moody and fucked up without ever feeling exploitative (to me); this is very much about the groupies, not about the man on trial, and we never seen the horrifying footage at the center of the trial.
It's also shippy as hell. Our main gal Kelly-Anne is a wealthy model and computer hacker who professes herself to be "not bad with numbers," who's obsessed with the trial for reasons that are to some extent left to the viewer, while Clementine is a less well-heeled diehard apologist for the man at the center of the trial and is convinced he's innocent. Somehow out of these two, it's Clementine who feels like the more well-adjusted person; it's questionable whether Kelly-Anne has any friends at all, and yet maybe Clementine becomes one. As a friend of mine described it, "Clementine’s more open neediness draws out a reciprocal vulnerability from Kelly-Anne."
High rec from me. If any of this sounds appealing to you, definitely check it out.
Something blue
5 January 2026 10:13![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
fanhackers_feedYet Tumblr was also a deeply flawed “blue hellscape” to many of its users, a technologically frustrating, often unsafe platform that did not always serve all its users well. As our authors testify, its most vulnerable groups faced the same challenges on Tumblr as they did in real life. Nonetheless, these sub- cultures persisted on the platform because it offered participants the best option and tools for alternative networking among very limited choices. Tumblr was, for many, a deinstitutionalized, underfunded, unauthorized, constantly on- the- run think tank– cum– chocolate factory, a subcultural, countercultural place where alternative pleasures, education and resource-sharing, creative and critical work happened. During its first decade, Tumblr became the space for the development of, for example, Black feminist theory, LGBTQ+/nonbinary identity formation, disability and chronic pain collectivities, critical media culture, and alternative body erotics and porn. The increasing calls for social justice that marked the 2010s, especially among young people, prompted The New York Times in 2014 to acknowledge the platform’s youth subcultures as heralding “the age of Tumblr activism.”
Given Tumblr’s uniqueness as a platform and the ephemerality of the internet, we began this book in early 2016 with the goal of representing and preserving evidence of Tumblr’s creative forms and critical voices, and we structured this book accordingly. The experience of Tumblr is the experience of multiplicity. Our intention has always been to make this volume as poly-vocal as possible, which means we have included a wide variety of voices, some of which clash with each other, in an attempt to mirror the experience of encountering the variety of perspectives on Tumblr.
–“You Must Be New Here: An Introduction” (2020), by Allison McCracken, Alexander Cho, Louisa Stein, and Indira Neill Hoc,
from a tumblr book: platform and cultures
Book fortune-telling meme
5 January 2026 14:57nanilavia antisoppist
The first book nearest me is Metallurgical Assessment of Spacecraft Materials and Parts by Barrie D. Dunn (1996).
The sentence is: "Special fibres giving more options in strength, stiffness, light weight, and endurance against heat have been developed (Klein 1988)."
The chapter containing it discusses composite materials and ways to control their properties. The thing that makes me happiest about that particular sentence is the use of the Oxford comma.
The second book nearest me is The political diaries of a chief whip by Simon Hart (2025).
The sentence is: "It feels like authority is ebbing with every hour."
The chapter containing it is titled "April 2021-January 2022" and I think we probably all remember painfully well the fiasco that was the handling of pandemic restrictions to which this sentence clearly relates.
Cue hollow laughter as I realise the sentence is applicable to both work and home life. Particularly with a teenager and a tweenager incessantly challenging boundaries.
antisoppist- Grab the nearest book.
- Turn to page 126
- The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026.
The first book nearest me is Metallurgical Assessment of Spacecraft Materials and Parts by Barrie D. Dunn (1996).
The sentence is: "Special fibres giving more options in strength, stiffness, light weight, and endurance against heat have been developed (Klein 1988)."
The chapter containing it discusses composite materials and ways to control their properties. The thing that makes me happiest about that particular sentence is the use of the Oxford comma.
The second book nearest me is The political diaries of a chief whip by Simon Hart (2025).
The sentence is: "It feels like authority is ebbing with every hour."
The chapter containing it is titled "April 2021-January 2022" and I think we probably all remember painfully well the fiasco that was the handling of pandemic restrictions to which this sentence clearly relates.
Cue hollow laughter as I realise the sentence is applicable to both work and home life. Particularly with a teenager and a tweenager incessantly challenging boundaries.
Snowflake Challenge #2
4 January 2026 20:35snickficSnowflake challenge #2: Post about your pets, pets from your canon, anything you want!
The theme of this post is Gallaghers Being Cute With Animals. It's Mucca's fault, she enabled me.
Noel professes very much NOT to be an animal person, but look at him.
This is Boots, whom Noel wanted to name Mr. Whiskers. Not that he cares! Definitely not.
Meanwhile, Liam is an animal person all day long. He currently has cats Sid and Nancy and a dog named Buttons, who he adopted from a rescue in Thailand. He submitted an application through the regular channels, and the people there were half-convinced it was a hoax. The whole story is very cute.
Liam asleep with Buttons.
Liam awake with Buttons.
When he adopted Sid from a shelter in 2018, that was pretty cute, too. Liam Gallagher: can't resist rubbing his face all over a kitten, any more than the rest of us can.
In conclusion, a recent tweet:
The theme of this post is Gallaghers Being Cute With Animals. It's Mucca's fault, she enabled me.
Noel professes very much NOT to be an animal person, but look at him.
This is Boots, whom Noel wanted to name Mr. Whiskers. Not that he cares! Definitely not.
Meanwhile, Liam is an animal person all day long. He currently has cats Sid and Nancy and a dog named Buttons, who he adopted from a rescue in Thailand. He submitted an application through the regular channels, and the people there were half-convinced it was a hoax. The whole story is very cute.
Liam asleep with Buttons.
Liam awake with Buttons.
When he adopted Sid from a shelter in 2018, that was pretty cute, too. Liam Gallagher: can't resist rubbing his face all over a kitten, any more than the rest of us can.
In conclusion, a recent tweet:
assorted fandom, mostly happy
4 January 2026 16:22snickfic* I'm really delighted that there were fantastic Yuletide fics about Stebbins from The Long Walk for both the novel AND the show. I love Garraty and McVries, obviously, but Stebbins always intrigued me in the novel, and I think he might actually be my favorite from a fanworks perspective? I don't know why it's never occurred to me before to look for fic about him.
*![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
threesentenceficathon prompts open Jan 17. I am so excited. I've started each of the past two years with tiny fics, and I'm ready for a third year.
* I wrote 200 more words yesterday on some self-indulgent Gallaghercest. When things suck, the OTP is here for me.
* from![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
denise: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. 🧵 On her ffa thread, she added: Please spread this far and wide so as many people see it as possible, because I really don't see English-language LJ continuing in its present form for much longer, and I know some people may still have things they care about there. It doesn't matter how you get it backed up, but it's absolutely crunch time for getting it backed up.
*
threesentenceficathon prompts open Jan 17. I am so excited. I've started each of the past two years with tiny fics, and I'm ready for a third year.* I wrote 200 more words yesterday on some self-indulgent Gallaghercest. When things suck, the OTP is here for me.
* from
denise: If you have an old #LiveJournal account, and it has things you still care about in it, download it or import it to Dreamwidth SOON. 🧵 On her ffa thread, she added: Please spread this far and wide so as many people see it as possible, because I really don't see English-language LJ continuing in its present form for much longer, and I know some people may still have things they care about there. It doesn't matter how you get it backed up, but it's absolutely crunch time for getting it backed up.The Friday Five on a Sunday, and the promise of snow
4 January 2026 18:59nanila- Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?
Tap water. I drink bottled water if I forget my refillable bottle, which isn’t very often. - Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?
Yes, it is safe to drink the tap water here. It’s pretty soft water as well. - What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?
Nothing, which is how it should be! - Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?
Yes, we have a water butt in the back garden. We use it to water Keiki’s collection of carnivorous plants all year round, and for the indoor plants in summer. - Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?
We haven’t had water restrictions here, even when a lot of the rest of the country did last summer. I have lived in places with water restrictions previously (southern California). It taught me to have short showers and/or turn off the water when, say, shampooing or conditioning my hair, which I think are generally good habits anyway. Dishwasher appliances also use less water than hand-washing dishes, which took me a while to accept but once I did, that also reduced my water consumption.
In other news, it has got quite cold here, by UK standards. Scraping off the car in the morning and ice on the roads is what defines "quite cold" here. Those, and the eternal promise of "significant" snowfall. Certainly there has been in a number of places, some of which are a handful of miles from my location, but the photo below shows the extent of the snowfall we have experienced to date!
Fancake Theme for January: Crack Treated Seriously
3 January 2026 09:14runpunkrun posting in fandomcalendar
fancake is a thematic recommendation community where all members are welcome to post recs, and fanworks of all shapes and sizes are accepted. Check out the community guidelines for the full set of rules. This theme runs for the entire month. If you have any questions, just ask!
Supporting trans rights in the UK
3 January 2026 16:10rydra_wongBecause I happen to have a bit of RL knowledge and pulled this list together in a comment elsewhere.
In no order, and this is in no way intended to be comprehensive (if you've got other suggestions, please add them in the comments), but these are groups who I know are doing good work:
TransActual -- they've been taking the lead on campaigning after the Supreme Court ruling and are extremely on the ball: https://transactual.org.uk/
Gendered Intelligence -- support primarily focused on children and young people (up to 25), doing lifesaving work as so many trans kids and teens in the UK are really suffering right now, with the puberty blockers ban and also the overwhelming sense that the entire country hates them: https://genderedintelligence.co.uk/
The Trans Legal Clinic -- new organization providing free legal help for trans people in the UK; I know someone doing third-sector work who's met them and was incredibly impressed by them: https://www.translegalclinic.com
The Trans Safety Network -- a tiny group of people doing formidable investigative work: https://transsafety.network/
The Trans+ Solidarity Alliance -- impressively-organized political lobbying and briefing of MPs, again I think being done by a tiny group of people: https://www.transsolidarityalliance.com/
Not trans-led or trans-specific (unlike all the others I've linked), but the Good Law Project are fighting a bunch of the key legal cases at the moment: https://goodlawproject.org
They're much bigger and better-funded, though, so you might wish to send donations to the smaller groups for whom it'll make a lot more difference.
Also, if you're thinking of donating, some of these are legally charities (e.g. Gendered Intelligence) and some aren't because they're too "political" and are thus registered as CICs or suchlike (this is just relevant in terms of being able to use Gift Aid etc.).
Trans+ Solidarity Alliance and TransActual also have good info and advice on emailing your MP (including template letters), if you have the time/spoons free at some point.
In no order, and this is in no way intended to be comprehensive (if you've got other suggestions, please add them in the comments), but these are groups who I know are doing good work:
TransActual -- they've been taking the lead on campaigning after the Supreme Court ruling and are extremely on the ball: https://transactual.org.uk/
Gendered Intelligence -- support primarily focused on children and young people (up to 25), doing lifesaving work as so many trans kids and teens in the UK are really suffering right now, with the puberty blockers ban and also the overwhelming sense that the entire country hates them: https://genderedintelligence.co.uk/
The Trans Legal Clinic -- new organization providing free legal help for trans people in the UK; I know someone doing third-sector work who's met them and was incredibly impressed by them: https://www.translegalclinic.com
The Trans Safety Network -- a tiny group of people doing formidable investigative work: https://transsafety.network/
The Trans+ Solidarity Alliance -- impressively-organized political lobbying and briefing of MPs, again I think being done by a tiny group of people: https://www.transsolidarityalliance.com/
Not trans-led or trans-specific (unlike all the others I've linked), but the Good Law Project are fighting a bunch of the key legal cases at the moment: https://goodlawproject.org
They're much bigger and better-funded, though, so you might wish to send donations to the smaller groups for whom it'll make a lot more difference.
Also, if you're thinking of donating, some of these are legally charities (e.g. Gendered Intelligence) and some aren't because they're too "political" and are thus registered as CICs or suchlike (this is just relevant in terms of being able to use Gift Aid etc.).
Trans+ Solidarity Alliance and TransActual also have good info and advice on emailing your MP (including template letters), if you have the time/spoons free at some point.
Outings and links
3 January 2026 11:36kazzy_ceeIt's time for a new sticky post to track my outings this year. Links will be added as the outings are written up. Most will remain open, but some may be friends only.
Coming up:
6th January: Marie Antoinette Style - V&A
16th January: London Transport Museum, Acton guided tour
13th February: Walking tour - Diverse London, City Public Art by Refrugees and Immigrants
18th February: Samurai - The British Museum
Question a day meme:
January questions are here
There's another alphabet challenge run by Flickr, which I'm hoping to complete this year. It starts on 4th January. If anyone wants to join in, the prompts are available under this cut.
( Read more... )
Coming up:
6th January: Marie Antoinette Style - V&A
16th January: London Transport Museum, Acton guided tour
13th February: Walking tour - Diverse London, City Public Art by Refrugees and Immigrants
18th February: Samurai - The British Museum
Question a day meme:
January questions are here
There's another alphabet challenge run by Flickr, which I'm hoping to complete this year. It starts on 4th January. If anyone wants to join in, the prompts are available under this cut.
( Read more... )
New question of the day meme
3 January 2026 11:35kazzy_ceeI decided to write a new meme for daily questions as I couldn't find one. I've only written January so far, but here it is under the cut. Links to the various months will be added to my sticky post as they are written.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
2025 in review: books
2 January 2026 13:33snickficI guess I might finish another book before year’s end, but this feels close enough to be pretty safe. NB I have reviews for most of these books in my books tag.
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/reading patterns/etc?
Books read: 25
Pages read (roughly): 7450
Relative to past years, more murder mysteries, more rereads (five), more older stuff (four before 1940). Less straight horror. Probably more textually queer stuff? I read a lot on airplanes. I took almost the whole summer off from reading and watched movies instead.
I had a mountaineering phase kickstarted by that one Jon Krakauer book, which also meant reading way more nonfiction than usual. Apparently the key to reading nonfiction is to have specific topics you want to know about, rather than just being like “I want to Learn Things.” Who could have foreseen!
What are your top 3 books that you read this year for the first time?
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Yes, it really is that good, just like everyone says.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Beautiful prose, top-notch worldbuilding, and some great horror moments.
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. A shot STRAIGHT to the id.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Maybe The Secret of Chimneys, an Agatha Christie novel that I probably read at some point but had forgotten basically all of. The other thing I’d forgotten: how fun Christie is when she’s really on her game. This was a rollicking delight.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
It was disappointing to realize how much worse the sexism was in the Pern books than I remembered. Just absolutely soaking in it. Ugh.
Also, wow, I hated Wild Spaces by SL Coney. Haaaaated.
And I reread Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around. There felt like too many characters, too thinly characterized. I still love Aphra and the worldbuilding, though.
Did you reread any books? If so, which one was you favourite?
I reread several this year, but the one that I enjoyed the most and definitely the one I spent the most time with was Moby Dick. The langague, gosh. Good enough to eat. Having reacquainted myself with the story, I think I’m going to keep just dipping in and out of it every so often. I found and bought a physical edition I really love, the Canterbury Classic "Word Cloud" edition that is just a pleasure to read and makes dipping in very appealing.
On a related note, I think this year was the tipping point to me becoming a prose snob. The prose in Moby Dick is so rich and chewy and worth reading and rereading. Sometimes it's basically impenetrable, but even so! Incredibly rewarding. And then I open so many new novels and quit on the first page because the prose is so artless.
It's not like I want every novel to be Moby Dick, which also happens to be a timeless work of literature: hardly a fair comparison for a random novel I pick up at the library. However, there are lots of authors out there writing prose that is graceful and evocative in their own ways. Frances Hardinge and Stephen King come immediately to mind, for two very different living examples.
I just cannot be fucked anymore with prose that doesn't show some skill. Life is too short. I suspect this might lead me to reading more classics, which I'm not mad about.
What's the oldest book you read?
The Unafraid, a 1913 adventure romance by Eleanor Ingram (with a textual gay side character!), is the oldest that I read for the first time. For rereads, Moby Dick was published in 1851.
What's the newest book you read?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, published this year.
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
My most emphatic DNF was the second book in the Briardark series by SA Harian. I reread the first book just to remember what all was going on, then got like fifty pages into the second one and was like, actually I don’t care about any of these characters or the cosmic horror mystery.
Some others I started and wandered off from:
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
- Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
- Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
- Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
What was your predominant format this year?
Still mostly dead trees around here, although I did listen to a mountaineering book and part of Moby Dick on audiobook, and I read a couple of ebooks during my travels.
What's the longest book you read this year?
Moby Dick, with 561 pages in my edition.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I wanted to read more outside my usual fiction genres, which I really didn’t manage to do other than for a couple of specific items on the to-read list. Speaking of, here is all I read from the to-read list. Honestly five books from the January tbr is pretty good for me lol.
Moby Dick
The Iskryne books (I read the first two)
The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)
something by ECR Lorac
Any goals for 2025?
My immediate list of stuff I want to tackle or finish is:
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
The Count of Monte Cristo?
Something… literary, maybe?? Maybe My Brilliant Friend or something by Anne Rivers Siddons.
The Draegaera books (starting with Jhereg)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
The Coldfire Trilogy
Ammonite
Dublin Murder Squad
American Elsewhere
Perdido Street Station (reread)
A Zelazny collection (reread)
The Folly of the World
Maplecroft by Cherie Priest (Lizzie Borden + Lovecraft?!)
Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
I would say the main theme here is "ambitious," for me if not the author. A lot of older stuff, or stuff that is beloved that I haven't tried, or stuff I've just been meaning to get around to. A couple of those are already on my shelf, and it'd be nice to knock them off the TBR.
How many books did you read this year? Any trends in genre/length/themes/reading patterns/etc?
Books read: 25
Pages read (roughly): 7450
Relative to past years, more murder mysteries, more rereads (five), more older stuff (four before 1940). Less straight horror. Probably more textually queer stuff? I read a lot on airplanes. I took almost the whole summer off from reading and watched movies instead.
I had a mountaineering phase kickstarted by that one Jon Krakauer book, which also meant reading way more nonfiction than usual. Apparently the key to reading nonfiction is to have specific topics you want to know about, rather than just being like “I want to Learn Things.” Who could have foreseen!
What are your top 3 books that you read this year for the first time?
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Yes, it really is that good, just like everyone says.
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge. Beautiful prose, top-notch worldbuilding, and some great horror moments.
A Companion to Wolves by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear. A shot STRAIGHT to the id.
What's a book you enjoyed more than you expected?
Maybe The Secret of Chimneys, an Agatha Christie novel that I probably read at some point but had forgotten basically all of. The other thing I’d forgotten: how fun Christie is when she’s really on her game. This was a rollicking delight.
Which books most disappointed you this year?
It was disappointing to realize how much worse the sexism was in the Pern books than I remembered. Just absolutely soaking in it. Ugh.
Also, wow, I hated Wild Spaces by SL Coney. Haaaaated.
And I reread Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys and didn’t enjoy it as much the second time around. There felt like too many characters, too thinly characterized. I still love Aphra and the worldbuilding, though.
Did you reread any books? If so, which one was you favourite?
I reread several this year, but the one that I enjoyed the most and definitely the one I spent the most time with was Moby Dick. The langague, gosh. Good enough to eat. Having reacquainted myself with the story, I think I’m going to keep just dipping in and out of it every so often. I found and bought a physical edition I really love, the Canterbury Classic "Word Cloud" edition that is just a pleasure to read and makes dipping in very appealing.
On a related note, I think this year was the tipping point to me becoming a prose snob. The prose in Moby Dick is so rich and chewy and worth reading and rereading. Sometimes it's basically impenetrable, but even so! Incredibly rewarding. And then I open so many new novels and quit on the first page because the prose is so artless.
It's not like I want every novel to be Moby Dick, which also happens to be a timeless work of literature: hardly a fair comparison for a random novel I pick up at the library. However, there are lots of authors out there writing prose that is graceful and evocative in their own ways. Frances Hardinge and Stephen King come immediately to mind, for two very different living examples.
I just cannot be fucked anymore with prose that doesn't show some skill. Life is too short. I suspect this might lead me to reading more classics, which I'm not mad about.
What's the oldest book you read?
The Unafraid, a 1913 adventure romance by Eleanor Ingram (with a textual gay side character!), is the oldest that I read for the first time. For rereads, Moby Dick was published in 1851.
What's the newest book you read?
A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, published this year.
Did you DNF (= did not finish) any books?
My most emphatic DNF was the second book in the Briardark series by SA Harian. I reread the first book just to remember what all was going on, then got like fifty pages into the second one and was like, actually I don’t care about any of these characters or the cosmic horror mystery.
Some others I started and wandered off from:
- The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling
- The Incandescent by Emily Tesh
- Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident
- The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman by Niko Stratis
- Blacktop Wasteland by SA Cosby
- Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
- Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
What was your predominant format this year?
Still mostly dead trees around here, although I did listen to a mountaineering book and part of Moby Dick on audiobook, and I read a couple of ebooks during my travels.
What's the longest book you read this year?
Moby Dick, with 561 pages in my edition.
Did you reach your reading goal for this year (if you had one)?
I wanted to read more outside my usual fiction genres, which I really didn’t manage to do other than for a couple of specific items on the to-read list. Speaking of, here is all I read from the to-read list. Honestly five books from the January tbr is pretty good for me lol.
Moby Dick
The Iskryne books (I read the first two)
The Book of Lamps and Banners (Cass Neary #4)
something by ECR Lorac
Any goals for 2025?
My immediate list of stuff I want to tackle or finish is:
Knock Knock Open Wide by Neil Sharpson
The Count of Monte Cristo?
Something… literary, maybe?? Maybe My Brilliant Friend or something by Anne Rivers Siddons.
The Draegaera books (starting with Jhereg)
Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
The Coldfire Trilogy
Ammonite
Dublin Murder Squad
American Elsewhere
Perdido Street Station (reread)
A Zelazny collection (reread)
The Folly of the World
Maplecroft by Cherie Priest (Lizzie Borden + Lovecraft?!)
Craft Sequence – Max Gladstone
I would say the main theme here is "ambitious," for me if not the author. A lot of older stuff, or stuff that is beloved that I haven't tried, or stuff I've just been meaning to get around to. A couple of those are already on my shelf, and it'd be nice to knock them off the TBR.
2025 in review: Fandom
2 January 2026 12:15snickficMy year in summary
I posted 88k words this year across 31 fics and wrote more than 103k new words total. I posted 8 Oasis fics (including several very short ones), 5 original works, 2 Re-Animator fics, and 16 singleton fics for other fandoms.
Fandoms of my heart this year
Oasis, obviously. What a time to be alive.
I also rekindled some Re-Animator feelings earlier this year, between fic I was writing and getting to see the movie in the theater. On film, even!
Other fandoms I felt at least a little fannish about this year, whether writing, daydreaming, or what have you:
- The Iskryne books by Bear and Monette
- On Swift Horses, the 2024 movie
- Dune movies
( my year in fandom, in much greater detail, with a meme )
( other fannish things )
I posted 88k words this year across 31 fics and wrote more than 103k new words total. I posted 8 Oasis fics (including several very short ones), 5 original works, 2 Re-Animator fics, and 16 singleton fics for other fandoms.
Fandoms of my heart this year
Oasis, obviously. What a time to be alive.
I also rekindled some Re-Animator feelings earlier this year, between fic I was writing and getting to see the movie in the theater. On film, even!
Other fandoms I felt at least a little fannish about this year, whether writing, daydreaming, or what have you:
- The Iskryne books by Bear and Monette
- On Swift Horses, the 2024 movie
- Dune movies
( my year in fandom, in much greater detail, with a meme )
( other fannish things )
Yuletide 2026 story: If Destiny's Kind (Challengers, OT3)
2 January 2026 12:56likeadeuceIf Destiny's Kind (7877 words) by likeadeuce
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Challengers (Movie 2024)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tashi Duncan/Patrick Zweig, Art Donaldson/Original Female Character(s), Art Donaldson/Tashi Duncan/Patrick Zweig
Characters: Tashi Duncan, Art Donaldson, Patrick Zweig
Additional Tags: Road Trip, Fix-It, Stanford Era (Challengers), Art Donaldson's POV, ATP Friendless Losers Club, cw: ableist language, internalized ableism, i told tashi not to use sexist language about other women and she called me a dumb bitch
Summary:
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Challengers (Movie 2024)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tashi Duncan/Patrick Zweig, Art Donaldson/Original Female Character(s), Art Donaldson/Tashi Duncan/Patrick Zweig
Characters: Tashi Duncan, Art Donaldson, Patrick Zweig
Additional Tags: Road Trip, Fix-It, Stanford Era (Challengers), Art Donaldson's POV, ATP Friendless Losers Club, cw: ableist language, internalized ableism, i told tashi not to use sexist language about other women and she called me a dumb bitch
Summary:
By the time Tashi told Art she was leaving Stanford to rehab her injury and start training for the pro tour, he’d already heard it twice, from other people.
Snowflake Challenge #1
1 January 2026 20:34snickfic
The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.
For those unsure what the heck the Snowflake Challenge is, it's a DW event through the month of January where they post a prompt every other day on
snowflake_challenge, and you can respond on your journal to whichever ones you want, at your leisure. (If that's unclear or you're curious for more details, feel free to ask me. I was very confused for a long time about how it worked.)Anyway! Hi, I'm snick. I'm a fandom old who came to fandom via Buffy the Vampire Slayer a bit after the show had ended. My fannish evolution was something like:
1. Got into Buffy fandom, made my first fandom friends, wrote my first fanfic
2. Got into Supernatural, discovered kink memes, wrote my first porn
3. Got into hockey RPF, learned how to write. As mentioned above, I wrote before that, some that I'm still very proud of, but I feel like I really came of age as a writer in hockey fandom.
Since then I've spent time in the MCU, I got more into horror movies and sometimes into their fandoms, and I got into the band Oasis and have written a bunch of fic about that. I also got more and more into multi-fandom exchanges as a way to fill in the gaps (with mixed success) when I kept getting into smaller, less active fandoms.
These days, this journal is mostly for movie and book reviews and locked personal posts, but I do occasionally post unlocked about my writing or fannish events, that kind of thing. Every so often I even post news or meta about my fandoms, although that doesn't feel like what people do here on DW anymore, alas.
And to answer the other question, I'm doing the Snowflake Challenge because I really like seeing more activity on DW. I'm hoping for some prompts this year that will give me excuses to write about fandom stuff I'm excited about, which as mentioned above I rarely get around to doing. And I look forward to reading everyone else's posts and hopefully interacting with them more. <3
Yuletide fics I wrote!
1 January 2026 19:14snickficI had a fantastic Yuletide this year. I got two great gifts. I managed to write FOUR things for the main collection, a personal best! (The closest I've come previously is three in the main collection and one in Madness, and that was back in 2013.) I got really nice comments on them, even the one for a fandom I didn't think anyone would know. <3 And then I had so much fun browsing the collection this year, and I found some really wonderful fic. Perfect experience, no notes, can't wait to do it again next year.
Interestingly, everything I wrote this year was for fandoms I watched or reviewed specifically for Yuletide. Like, the two movies are two I pulled out of the Yuletide tagset and put on my to-watch list. I always enjoy making those lists from the tagset, but I don't think they've ever borne so much fruit directly before. (Then again, most of my old standbys that I don't need to review, like Oasis and Re-Animator and Scream, are now too big for Yuletide. That's probably a factor.)
First, my assignment:
stave my soul, Moby Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg, 2.7k. A ghost story. Last year I really wanted to reread Moby Dick and write Yuletide treats, I got about a third of the way in, and then I bogged down and didn't finish. This year, I wanted the same but even more, to the point that I not only offered it instead of planning to just treat, but I got very brave and culled my offers until nearly all my matches were Moby Dick.
I got assigned to whalebone (yes, really) and wrote this in a few days. The idea came to me pretty much fully-formed, and it should have been relatively easy to write once I got a handle on the narrative voice, but it was one of those times where I was finding writing very hard and was really mad at my past self for putting me in the situation, to the point that I wished I'd defaulted before the default deadline.
But! I did manage to write the fic more or less exactly as I'd planned. And this was by far my most popular fic this Yuletide, with more comments than I've gotten in a week on anything since 2020.
--
fires of love, Moby Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg, 2.2k, omegaverse. Then I turned around and wrote a treat, and it was Moby Dick omegaverse. In fact, qkind's prompt for this last year was the number one reason I wanted to reread the book, and I was very happy that they prompted it again this year.
The big appeal here was describing an omegaverse scenario in Ishmael's inimatable prose, and I had a great time trying. In fact the first writing I did for Yuletide was some paragraphs of this that I got in the shower. Ishmael discoursing about omegaverse gender stuff was a hoot to write. This might be my favorite Yuletide fic I wrote this year.
I don't know if I'll write more Moby Dick; I feel like I've gotten those two high-concept fics out of my system, and I don't have any other burning ideas. I really have to get in the right frame of mind to tackle Ishmael's voice, and it's like I'm holding my breath the whole time and have to eventually come up for air. On the other hand, I definitely think there's room for more Moby Dick horror in the world, if nothing else.
--
a restaurant called karma, Red Rooms (2023), Clementine/Kelly-Anne, 5.6k. This is an independent French-Canadian film about two serial killer groupies attending the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering several teen girls. I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, but seeing a Yuletide request was what finally got me to do it, and then I wrote this post-canon getting-together fic in like a week. This is the first fic in the tag, so I wasn't expecting much of a response, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how many people know it and have commented on the fic. <3
It was actually almost 2k longer at one point; the day before reveals I wrote 2k of porn, then woke up Christmas Eve morning and decided the porn took the fic way off track, and I took basically all of it out and made the fic fade to black, all before 1pm. I don't know if I've ever done that before. It was not my favorite time-crunch editing session ever! However, I ship the hell out of these two now and I hope more people write them.
--
wreck, Crash (1996), James/Catherine, 1.1k. James gets in a new, more serious accident, and he and Catherine enjoy the aftermath. This was a quick little PWP of them being fucking weird together. I don't know if I really hit the "if he likes cuckolding, he'll LOVE being rendered impotent by a car crash" button as hard as I wanted, but hey, it's 1k, it's fine. And it turns out I and one other person in Yuletide inaugurated the James/Catherine tag on AO3 because it didn't exist before, which blows my mind.
Interestingly, everything I wrote this year was for fandoms I watched or reviewed specifically for Yuletide. Like, the two movies are two I pulled out of the Yuletide tagset and put on my to-watch list. I always enjoy making those lists from the tagset, but I don't think they've ever borne so much fruit directly before. (Then again, most of my old standbys that I don't need to review, like Oasis and Re-Animator and Scream, are now too big for Yuletide. That's probably a factor.)
First, my assignment:
stave my soul, Moby Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg, 2.7k. A ghost story. Last year I really wanted to reread Moby Dick and write Yuletide treats, I got about a third of the way in, and then I bogged down and didn't finish. This year, I wanted the same but even more, to the point that I not only offered it instead of planning to just treat, but I got very brave and culled my offers until nearly all my matches were Moby Dick.
I got assigned to whalebone (yes, really) and wrote this in a few days. The idea came to me pretty much fully-formed, and it should have been relatively easy to write once I got a handle on the narrative voice, but it was one of those times where I was finding writing very hard and was really mad at my past self for putting me in the situation, to the point that I wished I'd defaulted before the default deadline.
But! I did manage to write the fic more or less exactly as I'd planned. And this was by far my most popular fic this Yuletide, with more comments than I've gotten in a week on anything since 2020.
--
fires of love, Moby Dick, Ishmael/Queequeg, 2.2k, omegaverse. Then I turned around and wrote a treat, and it was Moby Dick omegaverse. In fact, qkind's prompt for this last year was the number one reason I wanted to reread the book, and I was very happy that they prompted it again this year.
The big appeal here was describing an omegaverse scenario in Ishmael's inimatable prose, and I had a great time trying. In fact the first writing I did for Yuletide was some paragraphs of this that I got in the shower. Ishmael discoursing about omegaverse gender stuff was a hoot to write. This might be my favorite Yuletide fic I wrote this year.
I don't know if I'll write more Moby Dick; I feel like I've gotten those two high-concept fics out of my system, and I don't have any other burning ideas. I really have to get in the right frame of mind to tackle Ishmael's voice, and it's like I'm holding my breath the whole time and have to eventually come up for air. On the other hand, I definitely think there's room for more Moby Dick horror in the world, if nothing else.
--
a restaurant called karma, Red Rooms (2023), Clementine/Kelly-Anne, 5.6k. This is an independent French-Canadian film about two serial killer groupies attending the trial of a man accused of raping and murdering several teen girls. I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, but seeing a Yuletide request was what finally got me to do it, and then I wrote this post-canon getting-together fic in like a week. This is the first fic in the tag, so I wasn't expecting much of a response, but I've been pleasantly surprised at how many people know it and have commented on the fic. <3
It was actually almost 2k longer at one point; the day before reveals I wrote 2k of porn, then woke up Christmas Eve morning and decided the porn took the fic way off track, and I took basically all of it out and made the fic fade to black, all before 1pm. I don't know if I've ever done that before. It was not my favorite time-crunch editing session ever! However, I ship the hell out of these two now and I hope more people write them.
--
wreck, Crash (1996), James/Catherine, 1.1k. James gets in a new, more serious accident, and he and Catherine enjoy the aftermath. This was a quick little PWP of them being fucking weird together. I don't know if I really hit the "if he likes cuckolding, he'll LOVE being rendered impotent by a car crash" button as hard as I wanted, but hey, it's 1k, it's fine. And it turns out I and one other person in Yuletide inaugurated the James/Catherine tag on AO3 because it didn't exist before, which blows my mind.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Love For The Strong: Getou Suguru Fest 2026
1 January 2026 23:00annadante posting in fandomcalendarDescription: A fest aimed to celebrate Getou Suguru's character from Jujutsu Kaisen. The fest allows all ships and headcanons and interpretations and is open for gen and platonic works too. The prompting period has been over already however the claiming period is open and we have crowdsourced 28 prompts to choose from. The claiming period has no deadline and it is open until the last day.
Schedule: Claiming open: 01/01/2026 | Works Due: 15/02/2026 | Work Reveals: 17/02/2026 | Creators Reveal: 24/02/2026
Links: Tumblr | AO3 Collection | Rules & FAQ
Schedule: Claiming open: 01/01/2026 | Works Due: 15/02/2026 | Work Reveals: 17/02/2026 | Creators Reveal: 24/02/2026
Links: Tumblr | AO3 Collection | Rules & FAQ
1SE for December 2025 (and all of 2025)
1 January 2026 19:48nanilaSomehow I was under the impression that I didn't do much travelling in December. Making this video reminded me that I went to London twice as well as Harwell and then Norfolk for Christmas. I didn't fly, but I certainly spent a lot of time on trains and in the car.
The full year video reminded me that I flew to new places for conferences: Hamburg (Germany), Nicosia (Cyprus) and Larnaka (Cyprus). I visited my parents in the USA. I went to Paris (France), Darmstadt (Germany), and Frascati (Italy) for workshops. We travelled as family by train across Western Europe to go to a conference in Vienna (Austria). We holidayed in Wales and Norfolk. I went to Maui (USA) for a conference. It was an incredibly busy year.
( Full year - 12 min 30 sec )
An outing focusing on candles, light and shadows
1 January 2026 12:57kazzy_ceeYesterday we went to The National Gallery in London to see their exhibition Wright of Derby: From the Shadows. It's a small exhibition, but included some lovely paintings.
Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797) specialised in paintings focusing on light and shadow, and included many which showed the scientific discoveries of the day.
Here he is: Self-portrait in a Black Feathered Hat (c. 1770). A beautiful pastel drawing on blue paper.
More photos under the cut.
( Read more... )
It was a small, but very interesting exhibition.
On the way back to Charing Cross we saw the 25m (82') Christmas tree donated by Norway in Trafalgar Square:
And we went on a slight detour into Covent garden where we passed this Lego display *g*
Joseph Wright (3 September 1734 – 29 August 1797) specialised in paintings focusing on light and shadow, and included many which showed the scientific discoveries of the day.
Here he is: Self-portrait in a Black Feathered Hat (c. 1770). A beautiful pastel drawing on blue paper.
More photos under the cut.
( Read more... )
It was a small, but very interesting exhibition.
On the way back to Charing Cross we saw the 25m (82') Christmas tree donated by Norway in Trafalgar Square:
And we went on a slight detour into Covent garden where we passed this Lego display *g*
Multifandom: Crack the WIP 2026
1 January 2026 11:56chacusha posting in fandomcalendar
(Banner by
ysilme)Description: Crack the WIP is back this year! Crack the WIP is a multifandom fest for finishing your WIPs. If you need a deadline to help you finish something, this is the challenge for you! All fanwork media and all fandoms, ships, kinks, ratings, and lengths are welcome. Got a WIP you'd like to make a resolution to finish in the early-ish part of this year? Come join us!
Schedule: Works must be posted by June 30th. Sign-ups are open now and will remain open until the posting deadline.
Links:
crackthewip | Event rules and sign-up postYuletide recs, part III
31 December 2025 20:55snickficMy third and final recs post. Another great year full of great fic. Amazing work, everyone. <3
but first they must catch you, The Long Walk (2025), Stebbins & Garraty & McVries, 8k. The last three are rescued from the long walk and start trying to build a new life on a decrepit farm in Vermont. This is so lovely and aching and hopeful, full of small moments of Stebbins continuing to live that slowly grow into a life over the course of a fic, or at least the beginning of one.
Disspelled, Carrie - Stephen King, Sue Snell & Carrie White, 1.4k. Sue Snell is writing a history report on the Salem Witch Trials. A really intriguing little canon divergence fic about Sue cottoning on to some things about Carrie just a little bit earlier.
homophrosyne, The Odyssey, Penelope gen, drabble series. This is absolutely gorgeous, and every drabble here is a gem. Just spectacular.
cut it out and then restart, Hockey RPF, Carter/Richards, 4k. Finally, after hockey is over for both of them, they can begin. This ship is a real blast from the hockey past, and this is an achingly beautiful look at them, finally touching each other as they've wanted for twenty years.
vanishing point, Crash (1996), Catherine/James/Vaughan, 2.3k. All their interactions hinge around the moment of future collision. I am in awe of how well the author captures the feverish sensuality of the movie, lingering on all these physical details that somehow become erotic in combination and through the framing.
Hypnos on the Primrose Isle, 19th C Poets RPH, Keats/Shelley, 6k. John Keats seeks solitude on the Isle of Wight to work on Endymion... but neither his work, nor his sleep, will be as solitary as he expects. I enjoyed the overall poetic perspective here from both of them and how they are both so attuned to beauty and romantic framings of their experiences and surroundings. Poor peevish beleaguered Keats, who in the end so enjoys being courted and seduced. :')
burned in kind , True Detective, Marty/Rust, 13k. Post-canon, post-recovery, Marty comes to Rust for help with a case of group suicide, and it might not even just be because he wants to keep an eye on Rust. I always love a casefic that acts as character development for the characters as well, and some kind of creepy entity that lures people to suicide is both right in line with the series' ambiguously-supernatural darkness and laser-pointed at Rust's issues in particular. Great voices all around and a great character arc.
all men will be sailors then, Jaws, Martin/Matt, 4k. Martin survived. Now there was just the matter of learning how to live with it. I always love some good post-horror trauma, and this was a great look at Martin trying to find his way to some kind of normal, making the best out of some bad options. His hookup with Matt feels exactly right, and all their interactions are great.
of wild honey, The Blue Castle, Barney/Valancy, 8k. Five times Valancy Stirling surprises Barney Snaith. In which we get to relive some of the key moments of the book from Barney's point of view, beautifully told, with a lot of lovely lines and bits of insight.
but first they must catch you, The Long Walk (2025), Stebbins & Garraty & McVries, 8k. The last three are rescued from the long walk and start trying to build a new life on a decrepit farm in Vermont. This is so lovely and aching and hopeful, full of small moments of Stebbins continuing to live that slowly grow into a life over the course of a fic, or at least the beginning of one.
Disspelled, Carrie - Stephen King, Sue Snell & Carrie White, 1.4k. Sue Snell is writing a history report on the Salem Witch Trials. A really intriguing little canon divergence fic about Sue cottoning on to some things about Carrie just a little bit earlier.
homophrosyne, The Odyssey, Penelope gen, drabble series. This is absolutely gorgeous, and every drabble here is a gem. Just spectacular.
cut it out and then restart, Hockey RPF, Carter/Richards, 4k. Finally, after hockey is over for both of them, they can begin. This ship is a real blast from the hockey past, and this is an achingly beautiful look at them, finally touching each other as they've wanted for twenty years.
vanishing point, Crash (1996), Catherine/James/Vaughan, 2.3k. All their interactions hinge around the moment of future collision. I am in awe of how well the author captures the feverish sensuality of the movie, lingering on all these physical details that somehow become erotic in combination and through the framing.
Hypnos on the Primrose Isle, 19th C Poets RPH, Keats/Shelley, 6k. John Keats seeks solitude on the Isle of Wight to work on Endymion... but neither his work, nor his sleep, will be as solitary as he expects. I enjoyed the overall poetic perspective here from both of them and how they are both so attuned to beauty and romantic framings of their experiences and surroundings. Poor peevish beleaguered Keats, who in the end so enjoys being courted and seduced. :')
burned in kind , True Detective, Marty/Rust, 13k. Post-canon, post-recovery, Marty comes to Rust for help with a case of group suicide, and it might not even just be because he wants to keep an eye on Rust. I always love a casefic that acts as character development for the characters as well, and some kind of creepy entity that lures people to suicide is both right in line with the series' ambiguously-supernatural darkness and laser-pointed at Rust's issues in particular. Great voices all around and a great character arc.
all men will be sailors then, Jaws, Martin/Matt, 4k. Martin survived. Now there was just the matter of learning how to live with it. I always love some good post-horror trauma, and this was a great look at Martin trying to find his way to some kind of normal, making the best out of some bad options. His hookup with Matt feels exactly right, and all their interactions are great.
of wild honey, The Blue Castle, Barney/Valancy, 8k. Five times Valancy Stirling surprises Barney Snaith. In which we get to relive some of the key moments of the book from Barney's point of view, beautifully told, with a lot of lovely lines and bits of insight.